Despite the amount of publicity and buzz generated around podcast and podcasting, still I often receive emails and chat query about what exactly is a podcast. If you talk to someone about it, chances are you will see a blank stare on her/his face.

With this post, I hope to clarify the definition of a podcast (not podcasting).

There are a number of ways I could answer this question. Some might involve technical explanations, while others might be broad but ambiguous.

A podcast is a digital media file (or a series of such files) that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers. –Wikipedia

A podcast (iPOD broadCAST) is an audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer. –PC Magazine

A podcast is a pre-recorded audio program that’s posted to a website and is made available for download so people can listen to them on personal computers or mobile devices. –Enterpreneur.com

These three definitions give some technical and broad overview about what a podcast is.

The first one is a bit technical, but still leave too many room for improvement. For example, if you don’t know what a feed is then you have to dig deeper before you could understand.

The definition from PC Magazine could refer to many Internet audio broadcast technologies. Too broad, but you should have an understanding about what podcast technology is.

The third attempt from Entrepreneur.com is more or less the same as the second approach.

So What is a Podcast?

To put it as simply as possible, a podcast is a casual audio (or video) file that is syndicated to users over the Internet, for playback on any media player, including auto-download and synchronization to portable media players.

This definition, while far from complete, highlights some of the key features available in podcasting. A podcast is simply a casual audio file. Any MP3 or other type of music file will do, although you have to take your audience into account when syndicating your files. But, that’s entirely a different story.

A podcast is syndicated to Internet users through a special software — some of them are built into music player software.

To syndicate the files, podcasting uses the feed technology (RSS 2.0 with enclosures, to be exact.) If you are familiar with a blog and its feed, or subscribe to some blog feeds, then it is a slight modification of the technology. In fact, you can use a blog to generate podcast-capable feed.

If you want to download a podcast, you can do so directly through a website, much like downloading other files. You can also do so automatically by using a specialized software, or podcast-capable music player software, such as iTunes. The latter involves feeding the podcast feed to it, configure for automatic update and downloads of new files, and synchronization the next time you plug in your iPod.

Although the name implies it, you really don’t need an iPod to take advantage on all the features of a podcast. Many people prefer to listen to podcasts on their desktop. Still, others can easily transfer the files to their Pocket PC, portable media player (besides iPod), and any storage media you can imagine.

No matter what your preference is, podcast technology extends your experience beyond traditional and Internet radio. For example, many podcatcher (software used to receive podcasts) can be told to add newly downloaded files to your favorite desktop music player’s playlist.

Also read: Step by Step Podcast Tutorial, Marketing with Podcasts.

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